Two Swords
Apr. 7th, 2014 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
netgirl_y2kI have been bad at posting of late, fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective) the new series of Game of Thrones just started, and I can always talk about that.
I was of mixed feelings before the first episode. On the one hand, I really like the show (sometimes I think I prefer it to the books, but that's at least a little bit because I want to know how the story ends, and I honestly think the show is the only reason we're going to get there in anything like a timely fashion) and the trailers were getting me really excited. On the other hand, the part of fandom I hang out in is mostly book-fans and there's a lot of negativity towards the show - of the HBO ruined everything variety. And I know I'm in a minority here, but while I have been annoyed by some of the changes the show has made, I genuinely think most of them are in the service of trimming the fat and making the narrative more streamlined and watchable. For instance, if Asha Yara was to go straight to the north and we were to skip the kingsmoot and never see a Greyjoy nuncle, I would never complain about the show ever again. That's a lie, but I still think that it would be the right way to go.
Of course, some of the changes are in the service of more boobs, and that's annoying for a different reason.
My other unpopular opinion is that I don't think the show is any worse at female characters, misogyny, or sexual violence than the books.The show is more exploitative, and in desperate need of some naked dudes to even things up (I vote for Oberyn Martell), but thus far I haven't felt that the show has fetishised sexual violence in the same way the books sometimes tilted at (Lollys Stokeworth and her fifty rapists). Dany was raped by Khal Drogo in the books, if not on her wedding night then definitely afterwards, and I had no problem with the show making that explicit.
Eek, that's quite a lot of words before I've even started talking about the new episode, so
-My favourite part of the episode was Brienne meeting the queen of thorns; that you think that she's going to say something cruel and cutting, but instead she calls Brienne singular and marvellous, and then Brienne's pleased little smile. But of course, Lady Olenna has called men running the world "a foolish arrangement," and she's taught her granddaughter to gain power through men, using her wits and beauty, but if a woman can get by in the world by the sword, then I imagine she'd think, why the hell not?
I loved Olenna admonishing Margaery on her slip of the tongue re: Joffrey, I loved the little reminder that Margaery isn't as skilled in the game (yet) as a lot of fandom tends to paint her as. I think Margaery has two ploys which she reuses: you are a king (which worked on both Renly and Joffrey) and, we should be sisters (which worked on Sansa but not Cersei, which was a bad case of misjudging her target). And I found the height difference between Brienne and Margaery when they were walking together oddly delightful.
-I continue to be fascinated by the dynamic between Arya and the Hound (much more so than the dynamic between Sansa and Sandor, which I barely noticed when I first read the books); he's my favourite of Arya's inappropriate surrogate father figures.
In this episode Scooby-Doo & Scrappy-Doo get into a tavern fight, kill, like, five guys, and Arya steals her sword back. I think having a whole season between Arya losing Needle and getting it back worked really well. Also, for all the complaints that Arya has been too badass, every time she had a sword last year she was thoroughly rubbish with it, and easily disarmed. Which made sense, of course, she's a very slight girl with very little training; also, she's been using swords that she's just picked up, which are too big and heavy for her, and unsuited to what little training she does have. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm glad Arya has Needle back, and also glad that they didn't go all waif-fu with her in the interim.
Also, Polliver's men molesting that tavern girl called back to the bit in the book where Arya overhears the story of a gangrape the Mountain's men committed, which I mention because that's the other bit of the books where I felt like rape was being weirdly fetishised, and that was toned down for the show.
-Dany is increasingly becoming one of my favourite characters, which is interesting because she's also a very polarising character; I think she's pretty well liked among casual viewers, and she's basically despised by a lot of fandom. I wote a Dany fic for an exchange recently and got, like, ten comments in a row that went, "...ugh, I usually hate Dany, but..." And I usually take "I usually don't care for thing, but you've made me like thing" comments as a compliment, and I know that these days getting ten comments on anything is awesome and I shouldn't complain, but there's a point where you want to go, actually I do like her, hence the 5000 word fic I've just written about why I like her.
I don't think Dany is a good queen, necessarily, but I think she's fascinating as someone who would be an epic conquerer if her conscience didn't keep getting in the way; which is how she gets herself trapped in Mereen where her Messiah complex is brought down about her ears and leaving and staying are both equally bad options. I think it's an interesting story that was badly handled in the books, and will hopefully be slightly better done on the show. I have a sneaking theory that Dany's storyline was the biggest reason the showrunners wanted that meeting with GRRM about the future character arcs, because they want the show to run 7/8 seasons, and don't really want years and years of Dany and Mereenese politics, especially as there's a point where it'll be like that bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where all the viewers, every other character, and everyone involved in the show will turn round and go: GET ON WITH IT!
Anyway, I really liked Dany's opening scene with the dragons, both for Drogon behaving like an overgrown lap dog, my own dog does the exact same thing, and for him turning on Dany moments later. I do feel like Dany's problems, before we even get to the massive, massive Messiah complex, start when she treats her dragons as a cross between children and pets, and not, you know, dragons. I did not like her scene with Daario, this is largely because I don't like Daario, but also because I want to see Dany being a conquerer and a queen, not watch her have boy drama. Not least because Dany's taste in men is just soooo awful.
I see that they have recast Daario Naharis. I like this one's face better than the last one, but that's still the only good thing I can say about him. I hope Grey Worm kills him.
-I loved Oberyn and Ellaria, although those accents were a bit random. Yay for canon bisexuality, and for a brothel scene that didn't make me lose the will to live. I haven't read Storm of Swords for years, and I remember very little of Oberyn in the books. But I confess myself enamoured by the show's portrayal of him as sexy as fuck and a total fucking loose canon. The scene where he's talking about what happened to poor Elia worked as exposition and was an interesting moment for Tyrion. Because between Oberyn and Sansa, Tyrion, who's still a loyal Lannister at this point, keeps being confronted with the worst deeds of his family.
-I still don't understand moving up Jaime and Brienne's return to King's Landing; okay, it ended S3 neatly, but it borks the beginning of S4. Not least of which is Sansa still being in King's Landing when Brienne arrives. I don't believe for a second that Brienne wouldn't introduce herself to Sansa; if she found time to talk to Margaery about Renly, then she found time to talk to Sansa about Cat; at the very least she ought to be dogging the girl's steps with failed subtlety in an attempt to keep her safe. It also undercuts Brienne's later quest to find Sansa if the girl was right there under her nose for days or weeks.
I wonder if the show might not send Brienne off to look for Arya; I mean, from a show perspective it doesn't really matter, it's all Brienne riding around being a fucking awesome knight errant but noticeably not finding any Starks. But Brienne quest for Sansa really works for me on a thematic level; the girl who wanted a true knight, and the girl who wanted to be a knight.
Having Jaime arrive in King's Landing before the Purple Wedding is also a weird choice, because I don't even know what's supposed to be going on with Jaime and Cersei, except that Jaime is down a hand and Cersei is kind of a lush now. Which, if you've already gotten past the societal taboo against incest seems like kind of minor issues. I read a suggestion that the "women's problem" Qyburn was treating Cersei for was an aborted pregnancy and a way of having Jaime find out about Cersei's infidelity. But I think that given the show went out of its way to lampshade Jaime's age as forty that it's more likely to be the menopause.
I was of mixed feelings before the first episode. On the one hand, I really like the show (sometimes I think I prefer it to the books, but that's at least a little bit because I want to know how the story ends, and I honestly think the show is the only reason we're going to get there in anything like a timely fashion) and the trailers were getting me really excited. On the other hand, the part of fandom I hang out in is mostly book-fans and there's a lot of negativity towards the show - of the HBO ruined everything variety. And I know I'm in a minority here, but while I have been annoyed by some of the changes the show has made, I genuinely think most of them are in the service of trimming the fat and making the narrative more streamlined and watchable. For instance, if
Of course, some of the changes are in the service of more boobs, and that's annoying for a different reason.
My other unpopular opinion is that I don't think the show is any worse at female characters, misogyny, or sexual violence than the books.The show is more exploitative, and in desperate need of some naked dudes to even things up (I vote for Oberyn Martell), but thus far I haven't felt that the show has fetishised sexual violence in the same way the books sometimes tilted at (Lollys Stokeworth and her fifty rapists). Dany was raped by Khal Drogo in the books, if not on her wedding night then definitely afterwards, and I had no problem with the show making that explicit.
Eek, that's quite a lot of words before I've even started talking about the new episode, so
-My favourite part of the episode was Brienne meeting the queen of thorns; that you think that she's going to say something cruel and cutting, but instead she calls Brienne singular and marvellous, and then Brienne's pleased little smile. But of course, Lady Olenna has called men running the world "a foolish arrangement," and she's taught her granddaughter to gain power through men, using her wits and beauty, but if a woman can get by in the world by the sword, then I imagine she'd think, why the hell not?
I loved Olenna admonishing Margaery on her slip of the tongue re: Joffrey, I loved the little reminder that Margaery isn't as skilled in the game (yet) as a lot of fandom tends to paint her as. I think Margaery has two ploys which she reuses: you are a king (which worked on both Renly and Joffrey) and, we should be sisters (which worked on Sansa but not Cersei, which was a bad case of misjudging her target). And I found the height difference between Brienne and Margaery when they were walking together oddly delightful.
-I continue to be fascinated by the dynamic between Arya and the Hound (much more so than the dynamic between Sansa and Sandor, which I barely noticed when I first read the books); he's my favourite of Arya's inappropriate surrogate father figures.
In this episode Scooby-Doo & Scrappy-Doo get into a tavern fight, kill, like, five guys, and Arya steals her sword back. I think having a whole season between Arya losing Needle and getting it back worked really well. Also, for all the complaints that Arya has been too badass, every time she had a sword last year she was thoroughly rubbish with it, and easily disarmed. Which made sense, of course, she's a very slight girl with very little training; also, she's been using swords that she's just picked up, which are too big and heavy for her, and unsuited to what little training she does have. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm glad Arya has Needle back, and also glad that they didn't go all waif-fu with her in the interim.
Also, Polliver's men molesting that tavern girl called back to the bit in the book where Arya overhears the story of a gangrape the Mountain's men committed, which I mention because that's the other bit of the books where I felt like rape was being weirdly fetishised, and that was toned down for the show.
-Dany is increasingly becoming one of my favourite characters, which is interesting because she's also a very polarising character; I think she's pretty well liked among casual viewers, and she's basically despised by a lot of fandom. I wote a Dany fic for an exchange recently and got, like, ten comments in a row that went, "...ugh, I usually hate Dany, but..." And I usually take "I usually don't care for thing, but you've made me like thing" comments as a compliment, and I know that these days getting ten comments on anything is awesome and I shouldn't complain, but there's a point where you want to go, actually I do like her, hence the 5000 word fic I've just written about why I like her.
I don't think Dany is a good queen, necessarily, but I think she's fascinating as someone who would be an epic conquerer if her conscience didn't keep getting in the way; which is how she gets herself trapped in Mereen where her Messiah complex is brought down about her ears and leaving and staying are both equally bad options. I think it's an interesting story that was badly handled in the books, and will hopefully be slightly better done on the show. I have a sneaking theory that Dany's storyline was the biggest reason the showrunners wanted that meeting with GRRM about the future character arcs, because they want the show to run 7/8 seasons, and don't really want years and years of Dany and Mereenese politics, especially as there's a point where it'll be like that bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where all the viewers, every other character, and everyone involved in the show will turn round and go: GET ON WITH IT!
Anyway, I really liked Dany's opening scene with the dragons, both for Drogon behaving like an overgrown lap dog, my own dog does the exact same thing, and for him turning on Dany moments later. I do feel like Dany's problems, before we even get to the massive, massive Messiah complex, start when she treats her dragons as a cross between children and pets, and not, you know, dragons. I did not like her scene with Daario, this is largely because I don't like Daario, but also because I want to see Dany being a conquerer and a queen, not watch her have boy drama. Not least because Dany's taste in men is just soooo awful.
I see that they have recast Daario Naharis. I like this one's face better than the last one, but that's still the only good thing I can say about him. I hope Grey Worm kills him.
-I loved Oberyn and Ellaria, although those accents were a bit random. Yay for canon bisexuality, and for a brothel scene that didn't make me lose the will to live. I haven't read Storm of Swords for years, and I remember very little of Oberyn in the books. But I confess myself enamoured by the show's portrayal of him as sexy as fuck and a total fucking loose canon. The scene where he's talking about what happened to poor Elia worked as exposition and was an interesting moment for Tyrion. Because between Oberyn and Sansa, Tyrion, who's still a loyal Lannister at this point, keeps being confronted with the worst deeds of his family.
-I still don't understand moving up Jaime and Brienne's return to King's Landing; okay, it ended S3 neatly, but it borks the beginning of S4. Not least of which is Sansa still being in King's Landing when Brienne arrives. I don't believe for a second that Brienne wouldn't introduce herself to Sansa; if she found time to talk to Margaery about Renly, then she found time to talk to Sansa about Cat; at the very least she ought to be dogging the girl's steps with failed subtlety in an attempt to keep her safe. It also undercuts Brienne's later quest to find Sansa if the girl was right there under her nose for days or weeks.
I wonder if the show might not send Brienne off to look for Arya; I mean, from a show perspective it doesn't really matter, it's all Brienne riding around being a fucking awesome knight errant but noticeably not finding any Starks. But Brienne quest for Sansa really works for me on a thematic level; the girl who wanted a true knight, and the girl who wanted to be a knight.
Having Jaime arrive in King's Landing before the Purple Wedding is also a weird choice, because I don't even know what's supposed to be going on with Jaime and Cersei, except that Jaime is down a hand and Cersei is kind of a lush now. Which, if you've already gotten past the societal taboo against incest seems like kind of minor issues. I read a suggestion that the "women's problem" Qyburn was treating Cersei for was an aborted pregnancy and a way of having Jaime find out about Cersei's infidelity. But I think that given the show went out of its way to lampshade Jaime's age as forty that it's more likely to be the menopause.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 01:43 am (UTC)Also... huh, that thing about Jaime and Brienne arriving early in the show just made me realise how convenient for Jaime's arc it is in the books that Sansa's not there anymore when he arrives. No-one can blame him for her not getting returned then.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 05:30 pm (UTC)It's not just that Sansa is alone in King's Landing, it's that House Stark has very much fallen from grace, there's only so far her name is going to protect her, and she knows that; and while the Lannisters are wealthy and powerful, Cersei has never had their unquestioned support and access to their resources the way Margaery seems to with the Tyrells.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 03:17 am (UTC)Have you read this interview with the guy who plays Oberyn?
no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 10:55 am (UTC)Olenna and Brienne was a totally unexpected delight!
no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 05:41 pm (UTC)*waves House Martell banners*
Martell! Martell!
I would watch a show where nothing happened except every single character, one by one, got to meet Lady Olenna. I think that would be excellent.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 11:32 am (UTC)Yes, seriously.
I was personally a big fan of bringing Jaime back before the wedding but so far the Cersei dynamic is hard to understand & like you said it borks Brienne's story. I do suspect you're right that Brienne will end up looking for Arya.
I have to say my favorite juxtaposition in the episode was starting with the very solemn epic fantasy beginning of the sword being forged, and then Jaime musing on being called an Oathbreaker (which foreshadows him calling the sword Oathkeeper and giving it to Brienne in a very meaningful moment); and then the last segment including the Hound bluntly, colorfully telling Arya what he thinks of people who name their swords. I have to think that balance was intentional and it suggests a willingness the show has to take the piss out of its own tropes, which I think is lacking (or at least not present in the same way) in the books.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 06:12 pm (UTC)If Brienne does go searching for Arya, I'll be irked but-- I think sometimes criticism of the adaptation can miss the point between "that was one of my favourite parts of the books and I am personally annoyed by the change" and "I think that is structurally a bad change, and a poor decision."
no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 06:10 pm (UTC)That scene absolutely made the episode for me, and the Martells clinched it. Yes, there were gratuitous boobs, but they actually made sense in context and I'm all for naked Oberyn. (The accents were a bit odd, but I suppose they're trying to differentiate the Dornish from both the rest of Westeros and from everyone Dany is conquering...?)
Arya and the Hound were also great, although I'm wondering how they're planning to shoehorn in the whole Ser Dontos thing this far along. Presumably his fake necklace is meant to stand in for That Infamous Hairnet? I don't know.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-08 07:38 pm (UTC)I assume that Dontos' necklace is the show version of the Hairnet of Horrible Choking Death, too, but last year when they were buffing Ros' character up for the slaughter I thought that they were going to give the Dontos stuff to Ros; what with her being Littlefinger's right hand woman, and her having that scene with Shae where they talked about watching out for Sansa. So clearly I know nothing.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-09 02:27 am (UTC)Oh, that would have been such good use of her character. Dammit, I wish they'd done that.
And I too would watch an entire show of nothing but Olenna Tyrell's Opinions On Everything.